3D Printed Turtle Eggs To Help Stop Poaching..

The illegal collection of turtle eggs being removed from the coasts of North and Central America is a great concern not only for animal activist but pet lovers as well Poachers steal the eggs, sometimes while the turtle is laying them, and sell them to be eaten. While turtles such as the Loggerhead and the Olive Ridley sea turtle lay large numbers of eggs at a time, they do so only once a year and many of the young that hatch from the eggs do not survive to adulthood. In addition, the clutches are completely defenseless and already subject to attacks by other natural predators. All in all this means that every egg counts when helping to maintain threatened species’ populations. In an effort to better understand the demand for these eggs, a California conservation group named Paso Pacífico has created a series of faux-eggs using a 3D printer. These decoys have GPS tracking devices inside them, rather than a future baby turtle, and the organization hopes that they will be able to determine who the buyers of these eggs are. The poachers themselves have often been the target of egg protection policy, but in order to address the problem, the root of the demand needs to also be extirpated. There have been concerted efforts to inhibit poaching activities. A California couple that was caught smuggling nearly a thousand Olive Ridley sea turtle eggs across the border from Mexico was sentenced to spend six months in jail and a Georgia man who was a repeat offender ended up with 21 months to serve in jail as a result of stealing Loggerhead turtle eggs. One of the impacts of these protective measures has been a rise in the number of nesting turtles. Unfortunately, this has also meant there are more nests to protect and larger hauls of eggs to poach attracts more attention. In the same way that a few individual poachers can do a significant amount of damage, Paso Pacífico hopes that the information collected from the decoy eggs could lead to the removal of some of the big players in the illegal turtle egg trade. Even if not completely extinguished, the exponential nature of the impacts could be mitigated if a few of the big players were eliminated.culled ( Washington Post)